First, let me say that I’m a huge fan of Roon and this post is intended to be constructive and generate a good conversation.
I’m increasingly of the belief that Roon is due for an incremental release focused on increasing trust with the user rather than new features.
As someone who has invested a lot of time in Roon, I’m finding myself increasingly worried about what I would consider a slow loss of confidence in it.
Here are just 5 examples… each on their own might seem small, but combined are causing my confidence to ebb.
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My biggest worry is what would happen if my database went bad. For example, what if some random file blows up my entire Roon database? I had this happen with Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Welcome Home” CD. Other users had it for other Toad the Wet Sprocket albums: (Can't connect to Roon Core anymore and roon server stuck in a loop).
As far as I know this issue hasn’t been fixed, so that album is still sitting in another place on my hard drive. What’s worrisome about this is it wasn’t a new import - that album had been there from the beginning. One day I woke up and Roon just didn’t work. Which means at any moment there’s potentially an issue lurking in Roon where it’s possible that the same thing will happen for another random album – and diagnosing which album was the issue took hours.
Again, this feels like a database issue - which is scary because if the database goes bad…
There’s still no good way to export or back-up playlists (aside from it feeling important to have a back-up, this also means you can’t share it with friends). The “Export to Excel” feature could be a good partial solution, except it doesn’t export the order of the tracks! So it exports a collection of songs, not a playlist. And exporting the playlist itself only works if you export all the files themselves. So there’s no good way to back up your playlists, which feels risky (and isn’t very fun from a sharing perspective). How to export m3u playlist Playlist (m3u) Export WITHOUT the music files
While this isn’t database related, it is related to my trust in Roon. The fact that after 6 months I literally can’t trust Roon to play a Qobuz album correctly due to incorrect volume normalization is incredibly disappointing. Volume levelling on Qobuz albums
Some people might say I should just turn off volume normalization when playing a Qobuz album, but a large part of the point of Roon is you’re not supposed to have to worry about whether an album is in your collection or streaming.
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These are just 5 examples I’m experiencing - I’m sure others are seeing other similar issues.
As a tech & software guy, I know it can be hard to do a true “maintenance” release (not a fast follow to fix a “feature” release). But it feels to me like Roon has hit the point where one is needed, and specifically one that is focused on increasing confidence.
Anyone else feel similarly? Because I would understand if it was just me (except for the Qobuz thing, which really needs to be fixed).
I have none of these concerns. Roon is just a way to listen to music and it works. If it goes away tomorrow, it’s no big deal. Just make sure you have all of your music files backed up adaquately. Decide for yourself what you consider adaquate backup. Also, do scheduled backups of your Roon data. My scheduled backups are every other night and I keep 10 of them on a USB drive.
For me, I have Tidal and Qobuz that neither required Roon. If I had a bunch of music files, which I don’t, they would be backup up in more than one place and one would be in my safe deposit box at my bank. Worst case for me would be a Nucleus I don’t need.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Roon and would hate to lose it, but it’s not something I need to worry about. For me, it just works, always and perfectly. I’m not sure why.
+1
I’m 100% up to that. It would be a relief to get an update that “only” lists bug fixes (even when I luckily never experienced any of them). I’d happy wait half a year longer for any improvement or new function. Unfortunately I just do not believe that it will happen…
I agree. There has been much focus on features, desireable or not.
But, for me the time passed since introduction of 1.6 has been as frustrating as rewarding…
While i really like the Qobuz integration, the release also brought with it lots of issues…
Search… Damned slow, and unacceptable for an application that relies upon it. Fixed since, but still slower than the competition,
Overview and Discover slowness… Still present in lots of situations and in some environments.
Metadata improver error… How many wasted restarts am i up to now?
Internet access needed for local audio on Mac. Really?
The time it takes to start up Roon with a library of 150K tracks, before it becomes usable.
Performance issues on Mac operating systems. Demanding 300% CPU and causing battery drain and fan noise (which this post could count as too, i suppose? )
All in all, i have resorted to competing software for some of my listening, more than i imagined actually. These are worrying in the aspect that Roon could be heading towards slow bloatware in need of a high performance internet access
I just ran across this issue and found this thread. A playlist can be exported into Excel, but the tracks are NOT listed IN THEIR ORIGINAL ORDER. Why not? And how long could it possibly take to fix this ongoing issue?
A good start would be a simple flat file printout. One that would extract the numbering column (a playlist’s 1st. column) and insert it into the Excel file. We users could then use it to sort. At the very least, I would like to be able to manually RECREATE a playlist and ITS ORIGINAL TRACK ORDERING. If only by doing it manually - selecting each track-by-track – within Roon or some other music player. Why the delay in providing an Excel file with the original track listing? Taking screen shots of a playlist is a work-around, but why must I do so, when an Excel file is being be created? When the Excel file output was programmed, why was the original track listing considered unimportant and hence, overlooked!?! Please correct this erroneous oversight.
I too enjoy using Roon. But it isn’t exactly inexpensive. I’m sure its development cost was significant. But surely the initial heavy lifting expense has been compensated for by sales. If so and thereafter, where are the sales dollars going, if not to user requested changes and bug fixes etc.?
Simple modifications such as the Excel file ordering issue can’t be that costly to implement. So, why hasn’t it and so many other concerns been implemented? These sorts of requests appear to be falling on deaf ears – no timelines or replies provided etc. As such, it does shake one’s “trust” in the product, because it seems like its developers are either not hearing, or don’t care to hear what their present users are saying. Knock, knock, is there anyone home?
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